I heard this on the news today, it made me wonder was it a demon, mental illness or was he just plain evil?

A Brisbane man who repeatedly choked, punched and kicked a woman before dumping her body in a park used her hair to decorate a tree "like a Christmas tree".

Alex Reuben McEwan is on trial for the murder of Korean woman Eunji Ban in Brisbane's CBD in November, 2013.

McEwan told a Brisbane Supreme Court jury on Thursday he could not recall going with friends to a driving range or returning to his Spring Hill unit to drink in the hours before her death.

What he says he does remember is seeing a person's silhouette while roaming the streets surrounding Wickham Park, near Ms Ban's Roma Street Parklands unit.

"I began choking her, punching her and kicking her," McEwan told the court.

"She was dead on the side of the road. I dragged her across the road, up the stairs and put her under a tree."

He says he was bewitched by a demon named Jazzy when he killed the woman and noticed strands of her hair caught in his hands after dumping her next to a tree.

"I decorated the tree I put her under with that, like it was a Christmas tree," he said.

McEwan's lawyer has argued his client's schizophrenia stopped him from being able to control his actions.

He has pleaded not guilty to Ms Ban's murder but admits her manslaughter.

Crown prosecutor David Meredith has suggested McEwan exaggerated his psychosis to avoid responsibility for Ms Ban's death and to spare his mother the distress of knowing her son is a murderer.

Mr Meredith said McEwan's admitted attempts to cover up the killing by moving and lying next to her body to give the impression to passing motorists the pair were drunk showed he was aware of what he had done.

Psychiatrist Olav Nielssen told the court the accused's treatment-resistant schizophrenia would have caused his actions and not the "evil intentions" Mr Meredith described.

"The only two explanations here are he's just a grossly sadistic psychopath or he's affected by symptoms of a psychotic illness," Dr Nielssen said.

"Five psychiatrists know he's got a psychotic illness."

The jury heard McEwan's trial last year was abandoned because he began hitting himself in the head, claiming he did so after Jazzy the demon told him to attack Mr Meredith.

McEwan has described the supernatural being as having "horse-like legs, hooves and a hairy human torso ... normal hands with claws and a goat's head with horns and sharp teeth".

A man was lured home before his death because his ex-wife wanted to "prove he was a dangerous man" who abused children and worked with demons, a Sydney court has heard.

Raquel Gaelle Hutchison, 40, and Paul Andrew Wilkinson, 39, have pleaded not guilty in the NSW Supreme Court to murdering the 41-year-old man, whose body was found dumped on a Wisemans Ferry road in October 2014.

Daniel Greentree, an alleged associate, is also on trial after he denied being an accessory after the fact to the murder, with the alternative charge being concealing a serious offence.

In her opening address, crown prosecutor Margaret Cunneen SC argued Hutchison had been in a "joint criminal enterprise" with her relatively new partner Wilkinson to "lure" her ex-husband to his St Marys home, in order to "at least inflict grievous bodily harm" upon him.

The court will hear evidence from a boy who saw Hutchison crouching in the doorway of the man's room, holding Exit Mould and a flip knife before she punched the victim down the stairs and sprayed him in the eyes, Ms Cunneen said on Monday.

The child allegedly heard Hutchison say "confess or I'll kill you" before the man replied "I won't confess" and screamed that his eyes were burning.

He later saw the man "very still" and "very quiet" in a car boot with a rope around his neck, Ms Cunneen said.

Greentree allegedly picked up two children - including the boy - from Hutchison and drove them elsewhere for a "small amount of money" during the 41-year-old man's torturous death, the prosecutor said.

She said the victim's autopsy report indicated he had been "subjected to a severe, complex assault over a period of time" and his facial trauma could be explained by multiple punches and tape put over his mouth and nose.

Hutchison's barrister Belinda Rigg SC said there would be no dispute her client "did acts" causing the man's death but evidence would focus on "why she did what she did" and if she was substantially impaired by mental illness.

"She went there to collect evidence to have him charged with abusing ... children and to prove he was a dangerous man because he was an exorcist, demonologist and ghost hunter," Ms Rigg said.

The barrister said Hutchison also had a "longstanding perception" that her ex-husband had killed his first wife which "escalated very significantly" in the fortnight before his death.

Hutchison, sitting between her co-accused, sobbed as the alleged abuse was detailed by her lawyer in court.

Ms Rigg said her client told a psychiatrist she "didn't intend" on the man dying.

"I wanted him to go to jail and be labelled as a child abuser, I punched him in the nose a fair bit ... (but) he wasn't beaten any worse than I have received in my life," Hutchison is alleged to have told Dr Olav Nielssen.

The man didn't personally target the Korean woman. In the moment of the attack he didn't want what was happening to happen, but, over the years, he'd come to accept the idea that one day he'd commit a horrific murder and that it was just a matter of time, and was - quite simply, something totally out of his hands / up to god etc. This outlook was given him by a nefarious third party, which he was indeed aware of, but which he didn't recognize had gained much of it's influence over him through conversations he falsely believed himself to be having with benevolent individuals.

I think you are correct True North, I don't think he was too worried about who his victim was but I do think he had enough self-preservation to know she was weaker than him and a vulnerable target that he could easily overpower. So... I believe, free will did come into play here; I believe if it was someone in stature that he couldn't overpower he would have put it off for another day.

I wish people, like McEwan, didn't believe conversations that tell you to hurt one's self or others are from benevolent beings!

I wish people, like McEwan, didn't believe conversations that tell you to hurt one's self or others are from benevolent beings!

^ I'm pretty sure he didn't believe that.

What I was speaking of in my post was the young man talking to and confiding in -- who he thought were -- benevolent spirits lending him an ear or god etc, but who were actually the very same nefarious third party I mentioned. At these times, where he would be sharing his tribulations and questions he had (as one does with a friend), he didn't realize who he was opening up to and forming a stronger bond with.

True North are you suggesting what the psychiatrist term 'a psychotic illness' is him talking to benevolent beings? or the demon he described and called Jazzy?

Are you saying this person had these negative thoughts and somehow formed a bond with these beings he thought were benevolent that his actions were justified?

If he did have a psychotic episode or had these beliefs; he still had enough cognitive awareness and ability to try to disguise the 'killing by moving and lying next to her body to give the impression to passing motorists the pair were drunk'.

There are 'talks' people have where essentially one party does all the talking and the other party does all the listening. These talks are not about having a discussion or getting advice; they're about the speaker simply being heard, having someone they're at ease enough with to unguardedly voice their thoughts to, 'put it all out there' and perhaps in the process gain some clarity or at least feel better about things after having expressed whatever they wanted to express. It's therapeutic. Friends do this for one another all the time.

The young man would open up in this fashion to, who he thought, were benevolent non-corporeal audiences he felt the presence of (god, relatives etc). He was mistaken. He was opening up to 'Jazzy'. This sort of trickery is commonly employed by malevolent beings. They will fill the listener role for people who are in need of someone to talk to in order to form a stronger bond with that person - in order to get more of a hold over them without the person realizing it... with the person in fact feeling good about these talks (feeling good about having been heard).

I have also had to deal with basically a curse put on my husband from a satanist. It was a struggle for me to get rid of the entity. Took me alot of having to learn energy work reike this forum to get me there. There really are negative things that attach themselves to people. Faith belief love learning to deal with it. I've learned sooo much from this forum and people on it. It really is a spiritual warfare!! Can't believe I am publicly posting this!! I'm just a 45 yr old stay at home Mom who is abit empathic. But I saw and at a young age alot of stuff other people didn't.

The man brutally assaulted the woman. The woman died as a direct result of this assault. His actions were criminal. This is not in question in the court. What's in question is the classification of his crime(s) as the law is written. Different arguments can be made here as to exactly how he's run afoul of the law and therefore what sentencing should be applied.

However things play out in court though, and whether the man was in control of himself or not at the time of the assault, under Universal Law he's responsible for killing the woman.

He has been found guilty of her murder and sentenced to life in prison.

During sentencing, Justice Roslyn Atkinson said McEwan had been drunk and although she accepted he had expressed remorse, he had given in to "sadistic and violent urges".

She said he was in control of what he was doing and knew it was wrong.

"I accept that after these terrible events occurred you developed a psychotic condition and a schizophrenic illness [but] the fact is that was not the reason why you committed this terrible crime," she said.

"I accept that you have expressed remorse of what you did, although whether you have complete insight into the terrible nature of this crime, I'm not so sure."

Justice Atkinson told the court McEwan had committed the "most brutal, horrible crime".
"You decided to go out and to kill someone … you treated that poor young woman with cruelty, degradation and contempt," Justice Atkinson said.

"You bashed her in the face, you stomped on her face, you broke virtually every bone in her face and not content with that, you dragged her across the road and up the stairs to hide her body.

"She was a visitor from a foreign country, she was just doing something completely normal."

Justice Atkinson said she personally expressed her great sorrow to Ms Ban's family.

"Bright intelligent, young woman — she has left behind a family with fathomless grief," Justice Atkinson said.

"You and you alone are responsible for that, and somehow you must live with that for the rest of your life."

I'm so glad she didn't let him get away with it, by claiming he was insane at the time. Sorry, but you don't have a psychotic condition with a schizophrenic illness, kill someone that brutally, and then have the presence of mind to go ahead and hide the corpse,